What about a Content Management System for your brain? - by Nick van der Leek
These days we think a lot. And there's a lot to think about. We get bombarded with loaded messages throughout the day. These are in the things we read, in what we hear, in the chatter off the airwaves, and the internet. So we're exposed to a lot of content.
If you consider music as one medium, never in the history of human beings have we heard so many different songs in such a short space of time. Think of the iPod, that it can hold 1000 songs, and you can hear these on your way to work, whilst training in the gym, and if you're a lounge-bound teenager, all day [with no one to tell you to turn down the racket]. The point is, we're experiencing a peak not only in terms of music, but media in general. Let's call this aberration in our fortunes, Peak Media.
Peak Media informs Peak News, Peak Entertainment, Peak Celebrities, Peak TV, Peak Radio, Peak Advertising, Peak Publishing, Peak Blogging, Peak Everything Else.
What do we do with all this information? How to rig a bookshelf of the brain?
One guru suggested that when you buy magazines, you should rip out only the pages you find of use to you, file these, and throw the rest away. I'm going to offer a higher level of functioning strategy. How to content manage your thoughts.
First of all, imagine a cloud, and the cloud is called DECISIONS. Our decisions give rise to our self-confidence, and you can determine the quality of that confidence by harking back to the quality and motivations, the type of decisions you're making. Good decisions inform a healthy self confidence which builds towards the esteem we have for ourselves, and the way others see us [or esteem us].
But it all starts at a thought level. Before we make decisions we have thoughts. Either these thoughts are original thoughts, based on who we are, our gut, our inner creativity, soul-based in other words, or they are secondary thoughts that come from others expectations of us, and thoughts borne out of what we read, what we hear, the influences - in other words - of others. And these are secondary influences, even if they've come to feel primary. Even if we come to associate that clamour with who we are.
Gut thinking is based on love, self responsibility, knowing what we want, whether we can do it, and then doing it. Secondary thoughts are not our own. They're borne out of expectations, fear and doubt. Advertising tries to sell itself as gut thoughts, well, the most effective advertising. It tries to sell an image we believe in or want for ourselves. But it reasons that we should have these or must have these, whether or not we can have them. Sometimes we want these things - like a new toothbrush - because we're told to want them. In essence, secondary thinking is rooted in fear, doubt, or even anger. Expectations drive us in our decisions, we feel obligated to respond. It is the thoughts of others, things that we've read that give rise to our decisions.
Secondary thoughts over the long term lead to moodiness, frustration and irritability as we sense a disconnect, a lack of cohesion between our true selves and who we're becoming. In playing it safe we develop more and more regrets. Our stress levels rise, and our emotional reservoirs struggle to keep up. Eventually they deplete and depression sets in.
Gut instinct is based on love. For ourselves, affiliation for others, but goes beyond these. It is a positive step towards being responsible and realistic, but also true to our selves. Intuitively we know what we want. Intuitively we know how to respond. But at times we fail to implement these responses because of the manipulations of those around us.
To be truly effective, as a person, or a company, or even as a product, you have to be true to what you are. What you are and what you say you are also have to be the same thing.
The content of your thoughts is less important than knowing where these thoughts are coming from. The wellspring, in other words. If the wellspring is based on secondary thoughts, you can expect to remain ineffectual and frustrated. if the wellspring is based on the inner you, and you can begin to set boundaries between your thoughts and the expectations of others, the power of your decisions, and your self confidence can only increase.
The world faces its present difficulties today because we ignore our instincts on a massive scale. these instincts apply to self evident realities from energy to the environment to how we conduct ourselves ethically at work and at home. At its core, is the level of honesty. We love ourselves and each other, when we can do the work of being honest.
The world has chosen to base itself on expectations. The stock markets are based on a currency of expectation. Money is based on expectation, rather than true value. Much of our behaviour is based on conventional expectations, about what is a good job, what is an appearance that looks appropriate, what relationship suits our image. It's a faux landscape based on shoulds, musts and oughts. This is why brands have such tremendous power. Because we've come to believe that we should use this fragrance, we must consume a particular drink, we ought to socialise in a particular manner and say things in a particular way. And because so many people are caught up in this expectation vortex, it becomes self-reinforcing. That doesn't mean it is right, or real, simply that this is the structure of a game we have invented.
It is not a game anyone can win. Like computer games, you may take vicarious enjoyment in advancing to various levels, but in terms of reality, all you're learning to do is to delay real life. Delay playing yourself in the amphitheatre of reality. Is it any wonder that our troubles have piled up to the extent that they have? Because almost everyone is invested in playing games, anything except being honest about who we are and being connected to what the world is.
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